My Year of Bonds, Vol. 3: Goldfinger

July 5, 2009

Took us a while to get here, didn't it?  Well, things happen.  I can still finish this by the end of 2009 if I watch one a week...

I noted in the From Russia With Love entry that the action sequences seem to load rather heavily into the back end.  That's not the case with Goldfinger, the first Bond film to begin with the now rather traditional "action scene that has nothing to do with the rest of the film's plot."  Bond slips into an industrial area from the water, plants a bomb, then pulls off his wetsuit to reveal a white tuxedo underneath and makes his way to a local club.  The patrons flee when the bomb goes off, allowing Bond some alone time with the club's dancer, but she is apparently in a plot to subdue him as he's attacked in her room.  Eventually Bond wins the fight by tossing a lamp into the bathtub with his adversary; he pronounces the scene "Shocking," and we head to the opening titles and Shirley Bassey's warbling.

I also noted in the Russia entry how stupid everyone in the film seems to be, particularly Bond, but chalked this up to underlying activity from the book, which was intended to kill Bond off.  Goldfinger has no such excuse, so maybe I should take a moment here and talk about the fact that Bond isn't really a great secret agent.  He's not a bad government agent, I guess - he can throw a punch and he's cool in a tight spot - but "secret"?  We get into it right away in this one, as Bond is asked merely to keep an eye on Auric Goldfinger, then immediately busts up Goldfinger's gin rummy cheating operation and sleeps with his assistant, Jill Masterson.  Goldfinger's manservant Oddjob easily gets the drop on Bond, knocking him out while he goes for champagne, and Jill is killed via asphyxiation when she is covered in gold paint.

It turns out that Bond is being tasked with finding out how Goldfinger transports his gold internationally (a seemingly mundane question which, incidentally, I don't recall ever being answered).  Bond works his way into a game of golf with Goldfinger - something you would think fairly stupid, considering Bond had obviously been knocked out in Miami by someone affiliated with Goldfinger.  Sure enough, Goldfinger reveals at the end of the game that he knows exactly who Bond is - secret agent indeed.  Nevertheless, Bond follows Goldfinger to Switzerland, where Jill's sister Tilly is attempting to get her revenge by assassinating Goldfinger (she got on that awfully quick, wouldn't you say?).  Because Bond is a super genius, he pushes Tilly's gun into a trip wire; Oddjob ends up killing Tilly with his hat (Masterson body count thanks to Bond: 2) and Bond gets captured.  Following this is the famous "No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die" scene, which the Simpsons taught me to think Bond escapes via a clever gadget trick, where in the actual film he really just makes a bunch of stuff up until Goldfinger decides (for some reason) that Bond is worth more to him alive than dead.

Bond is brought to Goldfinger's horse farm in Kentucky, where the villain's true plans are revealed - he's going to steal all the gold from Fort Knox.  Or so he tells a group of American gangsters, just before killing them all.  As he admits once Bond susses it out, he actually plans to set off a nuclear device inside Fort Knox, irradiating all US gold for 58 years, thus making his own gold more valuable and throwing the West into economic chaos (a benefit for the Chinese Communists who provided the nuke).  Why the entire bluff to the gangsters was necessary since he planned on killing them anyway is unclear to me; although really, why would an international supervillain with such an ambitious master plan and a habit of rather blithely killing people who displease him worry about Bond reporting him to the Miami Beach police for cheating at gin rummy?

Continuing his theme of not really being that great of a secret agent, Bond is able to overhear Goldfinger's plans, then gets captured again.  He writes a note to the CIA informing them of the plan, then drops it into the pocket of a man he thinks is leaving the farm safely - but unbeknownst to Bond, the man is the last gangster, who ends up shot by Oddjob and tossed into a car compactor.  So much for that.  Fortunately for Bond, the heretofore icy Pussy Galore is willing to call Washington after Bond "seduces" her.  (The initiation of his "seduction" is basically sexual assault, of course.  But since it's James Bond, she eventually yields.  Asked later why she called the CIA, Bond notes that he must have "appealed to her maternal instincts.")  The army dutifully pretends to be knocked out by Goldfinger's switched-out canisters of gas, then gets up and moves in as soon as he's inside Fort Knox.  Because why wouldn't you let a crazy supervillain get his nuclear bomb all the way inside Fort Knox before trying to stop him?  After a sustained gun battle between the army and Goldfinger's foot soldiers, the vault is opened back up; inside, Bond catches a lucky break when Oddjob somehow misses widely with his hat, allowing Bond to electrocute him with an exposed wire as he goes to retrieve it from the bars of the gold's cage.  The nuke is stopped at seven seconds (or, as the display indicates, 007); however, Goldfinger had a plan B, and has slipped away dressed as a US army officer.  As Bond is to be flown to the White House to meet the president, Goldfinger (still in uniform) has hijacked the plane, with Pussy flying it.  After a struggle, Bond shoots out a window and Goldfinger is sucked out to his death; as the plane crashes, Bond and Pussy parachute out, and the film ends as most of them do, with sex imminent.

Considering it's one of the most popular Bond movies, I was probably expecting a bit more out of Goldfinger.  While it features the first appearances of classic Bond touches like the pre-titles action sequence and jocularity during the scenes with Q, it rather oddly focuses the first 45 minutes or so on a total blind alley (aside from the fact that Goldfinger is involved).  The blunt offing of Tilly Masterson reminded me of Psycho, in which Alfred Hitchcock took the bold step of suddenly killing his supposed heroine and turning the film on a dime midway through; it seems like Tilly will be the film's Bond girl, and then she's dead minutes later, with the plot completely abandoning the Mastersons and flouncing off to Kentucky.  Even for a Bond film (and for 1964), the misogyny runs a little high; not only does Bond get both the Mastersons killed and barely bat an eye, but Pussy Galore - well, is named Pussy Galore for starters.  She's shown to be a strong female figure only as long as she's in service of the bad guy; once she's not, she melts under Bond's touch.  Criticizing a James Bond film for its cavalier attitude towards women is like criticizing the sky for being blue, of course.

Connery is still a great Bond - he practically oozes cool - but he isn't always given a lot to work with.  Many of the action sequences make Bond look rather average, although now that I think about it perhaps this is to some degree the point.  Just because Bond is a secret agent doesn't make him Superman, after all, and scenes like his final fight with Oddjob reveal Bond as clever and resourceful even when he's clearly licked physically.  Still, the plot is kind of all over the place and Bond's escape from death by laser isn't particularly consistent with the rest of Goldfinger's behavior.  And what kind of secret agent uses his real name when introducing himself to the man he's supposed to be investigating?  (This, too, seems a Bond hallmark, one I always found rather ridiculous.)  I'm starting to sense a pattern in the way I perceive Bond, and it's one that worries me for the future of this series - what if I'm incapable of taking Bond seriously?  On the other hand, am I taking Bond too seriously?  The series' humor is one of its calling cards; am I asking too much by griping over relatively minor details like plot and the intelligence of the main character?

I guess we'll see.  Thunderball - also supposedly one of the better ones - is next.

< From Russia With Love | Home | Thunderball >